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I’m not usually one to complain much about Facebook. You might hear some grumblings here and there from me when they change their format or something, but for the most part I just go with it. The way I look at it is Facebook is free for us to use. It’s a great way to connect with like minded people and keep family and friends updated about things and part of what makes it great is it’s free. So I also completely understand that the powers that be at Facebook are not going to make its users really priority 1 unless they are in fact paying them for ads or to boost posts or whatever. They first and foremost want to keep paying customers happy. That’s the way it should be. While of course the rest of us are important to the Facebook bottom line they really can’t keep everyone happy so I get that they want to keep those who pay them happy first and foremost.
All that being said, I do have a small problem with Facebook. It has to do with how they determine content or actions to be ban worthy and the way in which they give people to resolve the problem or keep it from happening again.
Now I have seen people griping about this same thing before. Mostly having to do with breast feeding pictures which have been removed or a picture of a half naked child. Someone reports it and Facebook removes it. And then there are a million other pages on Facebook which have pictures of boobs or sadly even Facebook pages devoted to exploiting children. That stuff stays, but breastfeeding pictures or innocent pictures of our children do not.
Now I admit the pictures of half naked children on Facebook is something I think should always be removed, but it needs to be consistent. The breastfeeding pictures, unless it’s showing a nipple I don’t believe those should be removed and Facebook has said as much. And yet it’s still happening. Whether it’s human error or a glitch in the system I do not know.
But my story is a little different because I don’t know what content got me in trouble. That is what my biggest problem is because not only is it very inconsistent with which content will get who in trouble, but now also we have a situation where I have no idea what exactly was viewed as hate speech.
Hate Speech Got Me Banned
I want to start out this story of mine by saying I wasn’t going to share it, but since I have now been banned three times from Facebook over the same incident, but I don’t know what it is I thought I should share. All offending content has been removed, the page has been completely deleted, and it’s still causing me grief.
I was the monitor on a rather innocuous Facebook page with a friend. Or so I thought it was innocuous anyways. There were all of 10 people total who had liked the page in its short existence. It wasn’t causing a huge stir. It would share things just like any other page, but someone must have taken offense to something and reported it. Completely unannounced to me back in July I was given my first 12 hour Facebook ban. My friend did as well. For those who don’t know when you’re banned you can’t comment or like anything that’s said on Facebook, but this includes on your Facebook pages. So my fan page for my blog I was unable to post or comment on for 12 hours as well as my personal page. You are still able to use the chat feature on Facebook though.
Now I’m a big girl, I can take my punishment. I laughed about the situation. I talked to my friend who was also banned on Facebook. She felt awful for getting me involved, but again, I’m a big girl. I make my own decisions. Neither one of us could figure out what could possibly constitute the banning. Facebook even ended up removing the entire page. All we were told was it was hate speech. Not what specifically was considered hate speech. As far as we were concerned it was a page like any other where people came together and discussed their opinion on things. It wasn’t going out and attacking anyone. And again it had all of 10 people who liked the page. If you look around on Facebook you will find any number of pages which discuss many different subjects and people and not all of them in a glowing light.
So not knowing how our page differed from anyone else’s and considering it had been removed we figured it would be over. We tried an appeal, but it was denied and we heard nothing about why. I waited out my 12 hour ban and thought it was behind me until the next morning I logged onto Facebook and it happened all over again. My friend tried to protect me by deleting all of the posts on the page which wasn’t even visible because Facebook removed it. She tried to remove me as a moderator, but it wouldn’t allow her since she too was banned. It didn’t matter, I still got banned for another twelve hours the next day. Said for the same reason. I tried to appeal, but never heard a thing from Facebook.
I thought for sure it was going to happen over and over again. So as soon as my friend and I were allowed back on Facebook we decided we’ll just completely delete the page from Facebook. Even though Facebook had already said they weren’t going to republish it we thought well maybe if it’s completely gone that will be that. And it was. The page was set for deletion and the next day neither one of us were banned again. We went on with our lives. No big deal until yesterday over 6 weeks after this whole thing started we were banned AGAIN for a page that we had deleted from Facebook.
Okay, now this seems ridiculous. For how long now am I going to get these random bannings for a page that isn’t even in existence anymore? It’s hurting no one, I’m hurting no one. I’m just trying to use Facebook and follow the rules. But the thing is the rules are so ambiguous. And I feel like I now have to walk around on egg shells. I mean if I say on Facebook now “OMG Miley Cyrus has gone off the deep end and mine as well just call herself a stripper” am I going to get banned for hate speech again? I get that my freedom of speech only goes so far and protects me from government persecution and any private entity (which Facebook is) reserves the right to make certain rules pertaining to speech, but to me hate speech is not giving your opinion on someones behavior, it’s saying, “All gays should die!” For the record I absolutely do not believe gay people should die, I was simply using that as an example of what hate speech is and of something I would never consider saying except in this way to prove a point.
For how long is Facebook going to punish me? I tried to make it right. I took down EVERYTHING to appease them and their rules. There’s nothing more I can do now. But I think the thing that makes all of this worse is if this is some sort of unfortunate Groundhog day like worm hole that I am stuck in, then no one is listening or helping me make it stop. I tell them that they banned me in error and no one ever responds to me to let me know what I need to do to make this stop.
If it’s just some weird twisted rule where Facebook just randomly remembers a past wrong doing and punishes you all over again, then I’m crying double jeopardy here. I should not be punished repeatedly for the same crime. I served my sentence if you’re going to ban me from here on out please at least make up a new reason that I deserve to be banned because this one I can no longer attempt to fix.
What do you think of Facebooks reporting and banning system? How does the little guy stop from being persecuted?
